Sometimes I really hate media. This is being sold as “Alia-Kangana Feud Heats Up!”, but really it is just Kangana making wild insane (literally) accusations and Alia trying not to deal with it. Exactly like the Hrithik situation, which was sold as “Hrithik-Kangana Break-Up Goes Bad!” instead of “Hrithik Roshan is Victimized by a Stalker”.
Let’s talk about context first. Kangana’s original remarks were in an interview to Pinkvilla. She volunteered them, Pinkvilla asked her general questions about her film release and how she felt, and she went off on a long tangent on being abandoned by the Hindi film community in which she mentioned Alia Bhatt among others (like, Aamir Khan). Alia happens to be promoting her new movie Gully Boy at the moment which means she is giving a bunch of interviews and is available to reporters. Unlike, for instance, Aamir Khan who was also mentioned.
During a press interaction, she was put on the spot and asked about what Kangana said, and replied that she feels bad if Kangana feels bad and would like to work this out in private. Basically, “I am not going to respond to this in a public forum, don’t ask me any questions”. Which is standard procedure with these kinds of feuds, during the long long Salman-Shahrukh feud, they were lockstep in their press interactions, it was a personal matter, it would be solved personally, they were not going to talk about it. And they never did, we still don’t really know why they fell out or why they made up. They weren’t denying there was a break, just saying it is none of our business what it was about. Perfectly fair so far as I am concerned, and a wise way to handle it, the fans don’t feel lied to, but also don’t need to get all up in the stars’ business.
Kangana, in response to Alia’s reasonable remarks, reached out to Pinkvilla again and gave a long rant about what she claimed to have said to Alia in a personal phone call. Taking their personal business and waving it around like nasty dirty laundry in public. It is wrong on so many levels. It’s modeling terrible behavior to the world, you should never make personal issues public like this. And it is attacking someone who never attacked you, Kangana is forcing this issue and forcing it out into the public while Alia was just trying to run away from it. Most of all, it is attacking someone who CAN’T run away. Alia is promoting her movie, doing her job like a professional, which means she has to have press conferences and interviews. It’s like going to someone’s office and ranting at them, they can’t run away and you are clearly the one attacking, not them, because you are bringing the fight to them.
Alia tried to avoid the question as long as she could, but finally in an interview with DNA she absolutely had to say something. This is not “Alia hitting back”, this is “Alia being trapped and forced into responding to a situation that Kangana created”:
I would like to react to her personally if she has any complaints. I don’t want to talk about it in the media. As I have said before, I really admire her as an actor and the choices that she makes. She’s a very outspoken person and I admire her for that as well. If I have upset her unintentionally, then I don’t know. Basically, it wasn’t my intention. I didn’t do anything to get a reaction like this.
https://www.dnaindia.com/bollywood/report-exclusive-alia-bhatt-on-kangana-ranaut-s-grow-a-spine-comment-i-didn-t-do-anything-to-get-a-reaction-like-this-2718100
Of course, I know what will happen, because it is the same thing that happened with Kangana and Hrithik. The two quotes will be taken out of context and presented as equal. Just like Kangana’s volunteered quotes to Pinkvilla were presented as equal to quotes from Hrithik’s private legal letter to her (which she also provided to Pinkvilla).
And at the same time, the Kangana politicians continues to bludgeon us with the lesson that she is the one true “feminist” in India. Maybe because only a crazy woman would play the “feminist” for the BJP so they have to take what they can get?
Oh, and you realize Kangana has now neatly flipped the script from “She stole a movie away from her honest director and co-stars and there are legitimate reasons for her fellow professionals to avoid working with her” to “Kangana versus Alia, hardworking outsider versus spoiled princess”?
dontcallitbollywood 
`
A wise person once told me, passive-aggressive people always win.
Sad but true — at least for the short term.
–
LikeLike
The odd thing here is, I think Kangana is being straight up aggressive-aggressive. But somehow because she is a woman, it’s being read as passive aggressive still, like she is being attacked instead of attacking.
On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 1:08 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
A big part of me wants Alia to not be so mature and sensible and instead escalate this whole thing with a nasty retort…just coz this whole thing is so entertaining. Fight! Fight! Fight!
Sorry…I’m a terrible person…
LikeLike
I want Priyanka and Kangana to end up on opposite sides. I feel like they are the only evenly matched pair in terms of dirty fighting, social media gangs, and not being afraid to play the victim card as much as is handy.
I was about to say Kangana and Kajol, but heck, they’ve already ended up on the opposite side of things and Kajol just coolly ignored her as beneath her notice.
On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 6:36 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ooohh that will be so much fun!! I think we can instigate this fight…send Bollywood Hungama an email with the title – Priyanka said Kangana is a bad actor (or something worse!)…they will naturally create an entire article about it and then voila the epic battle will be in motion!
LikeLike
Yes! And then they can just tear each other down and leave the rest of the world alone.
LikeLike
I hope Gully Boy is a runaway success and Alia gets lots of great reviews; protege of Karan Johar or not, she’s a really good actress, and she’s just shown how much more mature and well-spoken she is. (And don’t discount the political aspects of Kangana specifically calling out Alia – Kangana is in tight with the BJP and Alia’s dad campaigned for Congress in 2014, so as much as Kangana complains about nepotism, she certainly doesn’t seem to mind profiting off her political connections. I find the idea that the head of the censor board would be the writer for a film a huge conflict of interest but there you go …)
LikeLike
Alia and Kangana are really interesting opposites, aren’t they? Very much representative of the political backgrounds they come from. And far more equal than Kangana would like to make it out. Sure, Alia is from a film family, but her family drama could give anyone’s a run for the money, she just doesn’t play it up. And she has an educated background, but hardly rich, refugees and social out-castes all around who managed to find a place in the film industry. And Kangana may have come from a rural area, but her family was far more stable in every way than Alia’s. Alia is traditional film not because she is connected, but because the film industry is all about inter-religious marriages and refugees and breaking the social rules of Indian society. If Alia wanted to, she could counter all of Kangana’s victim cards quite handily with her own background. But she won’t, because she is too classy.
On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 7:03 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
I don’t know about classy and all that. I just think Alia is… young and she’s had a relatively easy life. She wouldn’t be able to counter someone like Kangana who is mean and not afraid to give low blows. She also probably just doesn’t care. Her life is great. Her acting career is going great. Everyone loves her within the industry and outside it too. Whatever Kangana says is really water off a duck’s back for Alia.
Karan on the other hand is snide, mean, and immature just like Kangana in many ways. If he’s not able to control his temper and ends up saying something, Kangana will have all the fuel she needs to keep this going for ages.
LikeLike
I feel alia is just the spring board.
Her real target is kjo
She is clearly instigating him as we all know how possessive kjo is towards alia
Once kjo utters something in her defence ,kangana will again play the nepotism is outsiders card and say. That they r hanging on her etc.
It’s a lose lose situation for kjo currently
LikeLike
Based on what we know of Kangana, I also think her criticism of Karan is another obsession with her. If she was truly concerned about nepotism (really, just cliques in the industry, not simply family relationships), then she should be calling out the Akhtars and the Chopras and really every powerful studio just as much as Karan. Heck, T-Series does the same kind of stuff. But Karan is the one she keeps going after.
LikeLike
I feel like she calls out Karan because he’s gay, tbh, and, as much as he’s an insider, he’s also an outsider because of that. Which makes him an easy target.
It’s the same way that she feuds with actresses like Alia Bhatt, but not, say, Saif Ali Khan?
LikeLike
Yep, definitely. He’s gay, and he puts himself out there. The gayness, the star struckness, his open love for the movies, it’s all setting him up as an easier target than someone like Aditya Chopra who no one really knows and is boringly respectable.
Plus, Karan responds. Which I think is just who he is, he can’t resist responding to these things unlike other stars who are better at staying mum and letting it go. We saw it even with the Kajol feud, right? He couldn’t stop himself from putting it all out there, and then they made up and he regretted it.
On Tue, Feb 12, 2019 at 4:40 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
I disagree. There are too many gay people in the industry for Karan to really be an outsider in that sense. I could name dozens of well known names.
She goes after Karan because he’s the most openly nepotistic and proud of it. He practically waves it in people’s faces and takes pride in it. He gets lots of flak about how he helps Alia so what does it do? He does a magazine cover with Alia and him posing and titled “my brilliant friend.” Ayushman even mentioned it that he was told outright that Dharma does not want outsiders when he was trying to make it. Aditya Chopra is invisible and even so, his company has introduced people like Parineeti and Anushka. Karan even tried to convince Aditya to drop Anushka because she’s “ugly” and take Sonam instead.
Kangana is obnoxious but some of the things she says are not wrong. She is mentally unbalanced and doesn’t know how to deal with things in a normal way. But the essence of what she said about Alia isn’t wrong. Alia herself messaged Kangana and wanted her to watch Raazi and was seeking approval. Kangana did watch it and praised her for the work she did but the same courtesy was not extended to Kangana when her own film was up for release. A normal person would make note of the selfishness displayed by Alia and not respond when she wants approval the next time. A normal person would ignore the snub and move on. Kangana can’t handle it and starts blasting them and makes matters even worse.
LikeLike
Yes, she doesn’t go after Karan for being gay, but because he is the most famous out there. She was acting strange and talking bad about people for some time, but it was only when she argued with Karan that she suddenly was in all news and a lot of people started supporting her.
LikeLike
The Indian Supreme Court decriminalized homosexual sex in SEPTEMBER 2018; until then, it was a crime. So yeah, being gay in the Indian film industry *was* until very recently being an outsider. Just as it was in Hollywood for decades.
LikeLike
I suppose it depends on whether you are talking about within the film industry, or within greater Indian society. Karan in particular is so upfront in his personality that he is essentially “out” to all of India. Which I don’t think is the case for any other film personality. Within the film industry, it won’t make much difference to him. But on a public forum playing to the media and the public, Karan is more vulnerable as an openly gay man than, for instance, Rekha.
LikeLike
There was an interview a few months ago where she did go after Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar.
LikeLike
Agree with Anon above – Karan sort of asks to be attacked for nepotism. What was the point of his magazine cover with Alia? What were they trying to sell? Dharma – as a group of insiders only? And all that father – daughter talk is just humbug and a branding exercise.
I’m no Kangana fan either, but she does have some relevant points atleast when she talks about nepotism. And Dharma is the biggest offender there. The other production houses atleast make an effort to be diverse in this aspect, but Dharma is extremely elitist. I just watched the latest KwK episode and his attitude to Kriti on that has made me extremely angry! More on that if/when you write about it.
LikeLike